


The Trial

by ohmyfae



Category: Final Fantasy XV
Genre: Emotional trials, M/M, mild body horror involving flowers, more like the one from mythology, things get bizarre and a little mythical, yeah i know
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-03-27
Updated: 2017-04-01
Packaged: 2018-10-11 15:27:00
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 5,969
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10468191
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ohmyfae/pseuds/ohmyfae
Summary: Gladio seeks out Gilgamesh in the hopes of gaining the strength to be a true Shield to Noctis.He doesn't consider whatsortof strength will be tested. He is woefully unprepared for this.





	1. The Lake

Gladio stood against a stone wall, peering into a gap in the rock that disappeared into a gaping darkness. At his left, Cor Leonis was packing up his camping gear with practiced efficiency, paying no mind to the tremor in Gladio’s hands or the shortness of his breath.

“This is as far as I can take you,” Cor said. He frowned and zipped up his travel bag. “I attempted this trial, once. You need to be alone for Gilgamesh to find you.”

“And what does he do?” Gladio asked. “You’ve been really fucking cagey about this, sir.” He couldn’t afford to be caught off guard in there. The whole purpose of this excursion, of attempting to clear a trial that no Crownsguard has succeeded in finishing for almost thirty years, was to be made strong enough to truly be a Shield to the king. What use was a Shield who couldn’t even block a blow from a single sword? The chosen king deserved the best— _Noct_ deserved the best. Gladio wasn’t there yet, not by a long shot.

Maybe, by the end of this, he would be.

“I can’t really say,” Cor told him, with a rueful look. “He… it’s hard. Harder than you think.”

“Is he some sort of daemon?” Gladio asked. “An immortal? What?”

Cor shrugged. “Not a daemon,” he said. “Something… else. Like a memory. You’ll know when you see him.” He got to his feet and strapped the travel bag to his back. “Get out of there alive, kid.”

Gladio smiled. “You bet,” he said, and turned to the gap in the stone. He took a breath to steady himself, and then crouched down, shuffling into the low tunnel and out of the light of the open air.

He fell into a wide cave what felt like an hour later, and had to cover his eyes for a moment so as not to be blinded by the bright, blazing lights that shone out in the center of the open chamber. He was standing on the shore of an underground lake, and in the center of its unmoving surface, he could see a small island. In the middle of the island was a grey and white tree, which pulsed with a steady radiance, down to the roots that glowed even through the earth in which they were buried. The tree branches were thick with hanging fruit, which glittered like precious stones. 

For the first chamber in a trial that had slain so many before him, it was certainly not one Gladio was expecting.

There was a ripple in the water, branching out like the uniform line of a flock of birds, and Gladiolus summoned his sword. A head emerged from the mirror-black surface of the lake, dark hair curling in damp strands on a pale forehead. They moved forward with an unearthly steadiness, a ceaseless glide that looked more like the undulation of a snake than the rocking steps of a human being. 

The creature in the water was exposed to the waist, now, and they wore Noct’s face. 

“Fucking hell,” Gladio whispered. The being that wasn’t Noctis turned liquid eyes (grey eyes, not blue) to him, and the smile that creased Noct’s lips was foreign and strange.

“Close.” The creature—the man?—stepped out of the lake at last. They had Noct’s skinny limbs and diminutive frame, his ratty black shirt and capris, but the way they stood was wrong. Shoulders up, back straight, feet planted firmly in the earth before Gladio, they looked him up and down with the air of a disappointed drill sergeant. Gladio had to force himself not to stand to attention, and he remembered Cor’s parting words.

“Are you Gilgamesh?” he asked. The man with Noct’s face shrugged.

“It’s what you call me.” He examined the sword in Gladio’s hand and let out a barking laugh. “You won’t need that,” he said. “Come. Your first trial stands before you.”

He stretched out a familiar hand towards the shining tree in the middle of the lake.

“Eat a fruit from the tree,” he said. Gladio looked at him critically, and he laughed again. “If you can.”

Gladio scowled and banished his sword. The water was deep enough for Noct—for Gilgamesh—to disappear entirely, but he didn’t want to take off his shoes for fear of what lay at the bottom. So he waded in fully clothed, determined not to look back at the apparition of his king on the shore.

The instant his clothes soaked through, a low, dull ache bloomed in Gladio’s chest.

He knew this pain. It’s what he felt when he stood on the cliff facing the ruined city of Insomnia. It’s the groan of his bones as he sat alone outside the tent the next night, waiting to cry, hating himself for the fullness of his lungs as he gasped for breath. It’s the hitch in his thoughts every time he stopped himself from saying, “Dad should know—“ It’s Iris’ hand on his, the bitter twist in his gut when he saw his father in his own reflection. There’s a reason he preferred to camp, a reason he avoided the security of hotels and caravans. 

The ache hurt, but he _wanted_ it, too. It was comforting, in a way. He knew it so well, but he had no time to give himself over to it. There was never any time. Only princes and kings had that privilege. 

“There goes another one,” said the voice of Gilgamesh. Gladio looked up, and only then did he realize that he was almost entirely underwater, barely resisting the pull to the faraway lake bottom. Gilgamesh stood ankle-deep, floating at his shoulder, and watched him impassively as Gladio gasped and heaved and pumped the water into a black froth. 

“What do you see?” Gilgamesh asked. Gladio couldn’t answer. He found a rhythm, slowly dragged himself above the water with every swipe of his arms and kick of his legs, and each movement was held back by the _ache,_ the yearning to submit. “I see a barren field, and the carcass of a bull. It is interesting, to watch you plow your own grave in the earth.”

“Not…” Gladio spat out foul water and sped up his strokes. “Not dying.”

“I said that, once.” 

When Gladio reached the little island where the tree stood, he was weeping. Tears that wouldn’t come for weeks after the fall of Insomnia broke free now, clouding his vision, making him weak with gasping breaths and shaking limbs. He pulled himself onto the shore and lay on his side, shuddering. Footsteps sounded by his head, and he felt a warmth as his guide leant down to press a hand to his cheek. The touch was firm, but somehow _unreal,_ as though it pushed too deep. He looked up at the man crouching over him and saw an ageless pain on Noct’s young face.

“Noctis,” he said.

“Is that who you see in me?” Gilgamesh asked. “Who is he?”

“A… a king,” Gladio said. “A friend.”

The man stood, and Gladio was left cold. “More than that, I think,” was the soft reply. “You have not completed your task, little warrior.”

Gladio grunted and pulled himself to his hands and knees. He half staggered, half crawled to the tree, and reached up to pluck one of the dangling, sparkling fruits from its branches. The fruit felt hard against his fingers, and it glimmered like a crystal in the dark.

He bit into it.

When people say that something tastes of sunlight, they usually mean that it’s airy and fresh. But when the juices of this fruit spilled over Gladiolus’ tongue and down his throat, it was the sunlight that burns, the sunlight that bakes sidewalks and closes eyes and draws out screeching cicadas from the earth. It was pain, and healing, and it was the most delicious thing Gladio had eaten in his life.

When he was done, he reached up again, but Gilgamesh stopped him.

“Once is enough,” he said. Gladio was reluctant to obey, but he lowered his hand and turned at the sound of rushing water. The lake had cleared a path for him, a line of mud leading out to a wide archway, where the next chamber glowed warm and inviting.

“Let’s go, little warrior,” Gilgamesh said, and stepped down onto the path. Gladio looked back at the lake behind him, and the branches of the crystal tree, and followed.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> When I heard that Gladio was going on a trial to become physically _stronger,_ I admit that I felt a little let down. Hopefully the DLC will not play it too straightforward, but in the meantime, I wanted to explore what it would be like for Gladio to go on an emotional, slightly more mythical journey. 
> 
> Gladio/Noctis is tagged, but it exists mostly through Gladio coming to terms with his love for Noct and what that means for him as his shield.


	2. The Field

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning! There's a scene in this chapter where flowers grow on a person's body in a distressing way. Just in case that freaks you out like it does me!

When he stepped into the second cavern, Gladiolus laughed.

“An odd reaction,” said Gilgamesh, turning Noct’s head to peer at him with a half-smile. “What lies in the field?”

Beyond the stone at Gladio’s feet, a rich, thriving plot of flowers bloomed. They were all yellow and white and reddish-orange, stacked up in lines like heads of wheat, reaching about mid-calf amid the lush green of their stalks and leaves. Gladio could see bits of stone jutting up from the field here and there, not one of them larger than a hands-breadth across. 

“Gladioluses,” he said, gesturing to the flowers. Gilgamesh raised a shoulder, unimpressed. 

“Find me across the field,” he said to Gladio, walking through it with a slow, measured stride. “Take care not to harm the flowers.”

Gladio’s grin dropped. He stared at the blooms with dawning unease—the stones that dotted the field were too far from one another. Noctis could have done it, even Prompto, but it took Gladio much too long to place his foot on the first stone. 

He jumped as flowers rustled nearby, and a man unfolded from the ground. High Commander Ravus, dressed in white and black, long hair ghosting about his shoulders, stared at him with a cool disgust in his eyes.

“A fitting Shield for a weak-willed King,” he said. Gladio swallowed down a white-hot spike of rage.

“So few left to protect.” This voice was lighter, hoarse, and Gladio turned to see Jared, his old family butler, rising to his feet. “So few.”

“Couldn’t even protect me properly,” said Noctis, who dug himself out of the earth, fingers scrabbling for purchase. “Had to _leave_ to go _find_ himself.”

Gladio turned to Gilgamesh, who watched the three figures with his head tilted on his shoulder, lips pressed tight.

“Okay,” Gladio said. “I know what this is.” This was some sort of get-over-your-fears bullshit. He could handle that. It wasn’t as though he didn’t think about it every goddamn day, ever since Insomnia fell, ever since he’d buckled under the weight of Ravus’ blow. 

He vaulted towards the second stone, and his hand passed through the image of Noctis as he leapt. Noct disappeared into dust. 

_They aren’t even real,_ he thought. _Grade A bullshit._

Carefully, he hopped to face the next stone.

His mother stood before him, not two feet away.

Her tight curls were pinned up in a bun, and the smooth brown skin of her arms were inked in the outline of osprey feathers. Gladio remembered tracing them when he was young, remembered taking a picture of her to the tattoo artist on his eighteenth birthday and asking, “Can you do anything like this?” 

She smiled at him the way she used to, all crinkled eyes and scrunched nose, and Gladio found that he was already reaching out to her. His fingertips stopped just before hers as he remembered the way Noct had disappeared at his touch.

“My love,” she said, in a voice Gladio had already forgotten. But when she spoke again, all Gladio could feel was the churning of dread rising from his belly to his stinging throat.

“Call him down, my love, call him down  
The crow who wheels in blighted skies  
Forsook his shroud  
Call him down."

“ _Mom,_ ” Gladio said, and his voice came out shuddering and high. “Not that one.”

His mother opened her mouth again, and Gladio swiped an arm through her, dispelling the apparition. As he did, his foot landed on a clump of soft yellow petals. He cried out as the ground below him began to _crawl,_ thin white roots bursting out to dig into his shoes. He wrenched a foot free, but the other was stuck fast, and in his panic he crushed another set of flowers.

“A shame,” said Gilgamesh, as the roots began to inch up Gladio’s legs. “Who is he? The crow?”

“It’s just a shitty poem,” Gladio said, and tried to rip the flowers free with his bare hands. A bloom stuck to his right hand, fusing his fingers together, and he let out a long, low groan. Gilgamesh stepped towards him, feet skimming over the flowers.

“You’ve failed,” he said, and the words spoken through Noct’s lips were too much, _too much._ Gladio _tore_ at the flowers, but they constricted his legs and right arm, and he fell back, landing with a sickening thud in a spray of petals and grass. 

“No,” he said, as he felt the tug of roots at his neck. “No, I can’t. I _can’t._ ”

“You _have,_ ” Gilgamesh told him, and leaned down so that his nose was inches from Gladio’s panting mouth and roving eyes. “Who have you failed?”

He could feel the fury building in his chest, the anger that he drove into the hearts of MT soldiers and passing beasts when the fear of his role burned too bright. It felt useless and thin now, laid bare as nothing but wretched thrashing against his iron control. He looked into Noct’s eyes—Gilgamesh’s eyes—and spoke to the king he’d left behind. 

“ _Everyone,_ ” he gasped, and the flowers of the field consumed him. 

 

\---

 

“Well.” Gilgamesh’s deep voice broke through the darkness. “You can’t sleep forever, little warrior. Though you are welcome to try.”

Gladio rose stiffly, and blinked as the dark fell away in scattered lumps. He was covered in flowers, but there were no roots in his clothes, no tendrils hooking in his skin. Still, he brushed them off as though the petals were made of fire, and glared up into the grey eyes of the man in Noct’s image.

“That was a fucking horrible trick to play on someone,” he said.

“Oh, no,” Gilgamesh said, heaving Gladio to his feet with a firm hand. “If you continued to fight it, I assure you, you’d be fertilizing the garden for the _next_ misguided soul. Come along.”

“Misguided?” Gladio asked. Gilgamesh didn’t answer, only continued walking, stopping only when they reached the next archway. 

“Now _this_ one,” Gilgamesh said, extending a hand. “This one even I believe is cruel.”

Gladio looked at the hand, so like Noct’s own that he could see the little white scar where the king had once cut himself on a sword. This man wasn’t Noct, he knew. There was no reason to fear this hand the way he did in his everyday life; In the way his own fingers clenched when Noct brushed knuckles over his wrist, the way he drew back at a touch of the king’s fingers on his own. With Gilgamesh, it was just a hand.

Just a hand.

He squeezed the fingers of the man who was not his king, and walked with him into the next trial chamber.


	3. The King

Gladio walked into Noct’s penthouse apartment in Northern Insomnia, kicking off bits of grass and flower petals onto the welcome mat.

“The hell happened to you?” Noct asked, poking his disheveled head up from behind the large sectional couch. “Don’t tell me someone kicked _your_ ass in training and I missed it.”

Gladio opened his mouth to tell Noct just _what_ he’d really been doing and why, and found that he couldn’t quite remember. It was something… important. Something about Noct. But then, everything was always about Noct, these days. He shrugged and stepped off the mat.

“Take off your shoes, Gladio, you’re not an animal.”

“Brat,” Gladio said, and toed off his boots before padding over to the living room. The wood floors were too cold and rough under his feet, but he didn’t give much thought to it. He leaned over the couch and looked down at Noct, who was stretched out with his phone.

“Who’d you bring with you?” he asked, not glancing away from the screen.

“No one,” Gladio said. “It’s just me.” His hand itched painfully, and he tucked it in his pocket. “You know, about training…”

Noct rolled his eyes. “Drop it, Gladio,” he said. “It’s what you’re good at.”

The apartment was silent save for the soft click of buttons and the tap of a thumb against the phone screen.

“You wanna run that by me again?” Gladio asked, leaning on his arms just a little further. Noct sighed loudly and dropped his phone. He sat up on his elbows, and for one moment, his lips were a mere inch from Gladio’s own. Gladio straightened in alarm.

Noct laughed bitterly and lay back down. “Yeah,” he said. “Like that.”

“Noct…” 

“What?” Noct’s gaze was dangerously sharp. “You’re gonna tell me _now?_ Or are you gonna be a fucking chickenshit like usual and punch me in the shoulder like the _just friends_ you never wanted us to be?”

“The hell, Noct?” Gladio said. Shit, he’d never _seen_ Noct this pissed, not since they’d fought at the base of the Disc. He walked around the couch and cursed as he hit an invisible barrier, just as rough and cold as the floor, and pushed off. “Don’t use your _magic_ on me, Noctis.”

“Whatever,” said Noct. “Who cares? I get it, okay? I get it. You never wanted me anyways. You wanted the _job._ Being a _Shield_ to the Chosen King is more important than _this._ ” He waved his hand between them, and Gladio felt that ache in his chest again, just like he did when he…

When he waded… into the…

He turned.

Another Noctis stood at the foyer, watching him impassively with storm-grey eyes.

“Fuck,” Gladio whispered.

“Not like it’s gonna matter,” said the Noct on the couch, “if we’re all dead soon anyway.”

“I wouldn’t let that happen,” Gladio started to say, but a crash out the window made him pivot on his heel. The sky had gone dark: Magitech airships roared past, towing the massive limbs of a daemon. The daemon’s knees gutted the street below, and it opened its mouth to reveal a gullet that _glowed_ with fire. 

Noct shrugged and stretched out his arms. “No point in trying if there’s nothing worth saving.”

“That’s not how he feels,” Gladio said, turning to Gilgamesh, who raised one eyebrow in disbelief. 

“Who are you talking to?” Noct said. “The _false_ king? The Shield who couldn’t protect his own master from hubris? The man who betrayed his people, the ones who raised him, who turned his back on the beasts of the field to stand with a king who fell to the corruption of immortality?”

“That’s enough,” Gilgamesh said, in a bored tone. “This isn’t my trial.”

Noct _hissed,_ and dragged himself up on the couch to face Gilgamesh. His face was twisted in a rictus of fury.

“It has always been your trial. You were warned, _Enkidu._ ” Spittle bubbled behind his teeth, and his shoulders hunched like a great bird. _Like a crow,_ Gladio thought. “You were warned, and you told your king to keep going, to think of the _glory_. And now he’s worse than dead, and you _dare_ to take the name of—“

Gilgamesh sighed and waved a hand, and like a light turning off, Noct’s face resumed his familiar, lazy expression. He turned to Gladio, who backed into the invisible wall.

“How do you love me, Gladiolus?” he asked. Gladio glared up at Gilgamesh, who was standing with his back to them. “Do you want me as your king? As this?” He gestured to the messy apartment, which was tinged with the red light of daemons burning the city around them. “As the chosen one you’ll die for? The man you’ll lay to rest?”

“I ain’t laying no one to rest,” Gladio said. “And I don’t need to tell you what I want. This isn’t gonna make me stronger.”

“Thinking you never cared will keep me _weak,_ ” Noct said, and some of that wild fury sparked in his eyes again. He stood, and the walls of the apartment began to shake. Something fell from above, striking Gladio’s forehead sharply, and for a split second all he could see was an empty stone chamber, with a tall man in animal skins at the other side, grey eyes locked on his. Then the apartment was back, and Noct pressed cool fingers to his brow. 

“Tell me what you want,” he said.

“ _Fuck_ you,” Gladio said, and kissed him. 

It felt like he was kissing the air. He knew where Noct’s lips should be, but there was no warmth, no resistance of flesh, and when Gladio looked up, he was standing alone in the empty trial chamber, which was littered with fallen rock. Gilgamesh, in Noct’s form, stood at the dark tunnel that counted as the exit.

“I think I saw you,” Gladio said, rubbing his hand over his forehead. It came back red with blood. “For a second, there.”

“Did you?” Gilgamesh asked. 

“What did Noct call you? Enkidu?”

Gilgamesh smiled. “Who is the crow in the poem? The one who must die?”

“It’s just a—“

“Exactly,” said Gilgamesh. “Come along. Time to talk to death.”

He ducked into the tunnel, and Gladio retrieved his boots and crouched after him, muttering darkly.

“Right,” he said. “Talk to death. Sounds like _my_ idea of a good time.”

The laugh that echoed in the narrow tunnel was almost kind.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I particularly like the fan theory that Gilgamesh was the Shield of the first king of Lucis, which has.... interesting implications...


	4. The River

“Behold,” Gilgamesh said. “The river of death.”

Gladio tried not to laugh. The river, such as it was, had more in common with a vat of dry ice than any body of water Gladio knew. The water that sloshed on the stone bank was a fine, colorless mist, barely a few inches deep, and Gladio could see patches of the stone beneath it as the mist flowed into a gap in the stone wall several yards down. All the same, it did _sound_ like water. Or rather…

He moved closer.

“Is it _speaking?_ ” he asked.

Gilgamesh nodded. “If the dead have something to say.”

Beyond the river was another bank, which rose to a small rocky outcropping overlooking the rest of the chamber. “So I have to get to that side, I’m guessing?” he asked.

“You must carry death with you,” Gilgamesh said.

“Right. Okay.” Gladio stepped into the river. It barely brushed the heel of his boots, and what words he could catch were faint. 

“I accepted this years ago,” he said. “Every Shield knows he’ll die in the line of duty one day.”

“You misunderstand,” Gilgamesh told him. He glanced round. Gilgamesh held out his hands to Gladio, a strange smile creasing Noct’s face. “It is not your death that you will have to carry.”

“No,” Gladio said. Gilgamesh remained where he was, arms outstretched. “No. I ain’t doing this.”

“Then you are not worthy of being his Shield,” Gilgamesh said. “You will return to him, he will die before his time, and all will be given to the dark.”

Gladio groaned, stamped out of the river of death, and walked into Gilgamesh’s arms.

The man was surprisingly light. Gladio held him in a bridal carry, legs dangling over his right arm, and felt the heat of breath on his neck. So he was alive. Gladio had wondered, but then, he’d seen something of the man’s true form in the last cave. 

He set his foot into the waters of death, and the river rose in a swell of rolling mist to his waist.

Moving forward was harder now, not just because of the added weight in his arms. The river kept hooking wispy strands about his legs, tugging him towards the narrow gap in the stone beyond. The whispers were louder, as well, and the vapor that made up the river itself coalesced into shapes that Gladio could almost recognize. 

“We’ll have to tell him one day,” said a voice. King Regis, always a little rough at the edges no matter how kindly he tried to speak. “Ignis must be prepared to take on stewardship, if Noct is to destroy the Scourge in the astral plane.”

“Nothing is certain, Regis.” Gladio paused, and the river dragged gleefully at his limbs. His father’s voice, as true as it had sounded nearly ten years ago, when Gladio had listened in on this conversation in the flesh. “He may yet live.”

“I know.” Regis sounded exhausted, now that Gladio was old enough to put a name to it. “But Clarus… We must be prepared for any contingency.”

“Was that when you knew?” Gilgamesh said. Gladio looked down at Noct’s face on his shoulder and shuddered. He took a heavy step forwards, and the mist broke apart, forming into another large shape further on.

“It freaks me out, Gladio.” Noctis, younger, sitting in his new apartment in his first year of high school. “The way Dad talks about the future… it’s like he doesn’t expect me to be king. Like the ring’ll take me before it happens.”

“He just wants you to live a normal life for a while,” said a younger Gladio, to his left. Gods, had his voice always been so deep?

“Was that when you knew?” Gilgamesh asked, again. The river’s pull was painful, now, and Gladio could feel his knees starting to buckle. “What was that your mother said, about the crow?”

“Really?” Gladio asked. Gilgamesh looked up at him, patient as the grave. “Fine. It’s a poem about a Shield, way back when. He was supposed to kill his king, because fuck if I know, and he didn’t, because _Shields_ don’t _kill_ their _charges._ ”

“Ah,” said Gilgamesh. “Yes, it would have been better, certainly, if he had. But your case isn’t much different, is it, little warrior?” Gladio shuffled forward against the overpowering current. “You don’t have to strike the killing blow, but you have to lead your king to his death all the same.”

“No one said he’s gonna die,” Gladio gritted out through clenched teeth.

“They don’t have to,” Gilgamesh said. “The last king of Lucis will always walk with death. So too must his Shield.”

Gladio dropped to his knees. Gilgamesh rolled from his arms, landing with a thud on the hard floor of the river. Gladio watched the spirits that made up the waters of death run over Noctis’ skin, and he raised his hands in surrender. 

And like that, Noct was gone. In his place was an older man, a few years Gladio’s senior, dressed simply in leather armor and furs. His dark brown hair fell about him in a pool, and his grey eyes looked upon Gladio with a cold rage that stopped his breath. 

“Do not return to your king,” Gilgamesh said, gripping the stone beneath him as the river tried to drag him forward. “He will be weaker for your presence.”

“I can’t go back empty-handed,” Gladio said. Gilgamesh laughed, harsh and light.

“You will go back with less than what you brought with you,” he said. “You faced my trials, only to turn and run at the last. Weak. Wretched. Like all of them, every one, doomed to bring the cycle to another turn but never to a close.”

He slipped, and was pulled several inches to the side. Gladio lunged for him, and scooped his arms under the ancient warrior’s back and legs. 

“Release me,” Gilgamesh snarled. 

“I don’t give a shit,” Gladio said, slowly getting to one knee, “what your trials are for. But I don’t leave anyone to die. Even Noct.” He rose to his feet. “Maybe it’ll happen anyways. Maybe I can’t stop it. Fine. But I’ll get the job done, even if I have to do it on my own.” 

He heaved the man in his arms and watched the river form new shapes, blurred and indistinct. Voices spoke, but in a language Gladio did not know, and Gilgamesh answered them in the same tongue. Every now and then, his hand would lift, brush the mist that made up the specter of some figure of his distant past, and something almost like fondness softened his face. By the time Gladio’s feet found the shore of the opposite bank, it was like walking through a wall. He shook off remaining strands of mist, and set Gilgamesh down on the stone.

“There,” he said. “I guess I’ll go.” 

He turned, and felt a hand on his shoulder. When he faced Gilgamesh again, the man was smiling, wide and on the edge of laughter. 

“The cycle turns,” he said.

“Whatever.”

Gilgamesh did laugh, then, and his grip on Gladio tightened. “Very good. I will lend you my strength. There is one condition.”

“Of course there is.”

“When your king’s job is done, bring him here,” said Gilgamesh. “Lay his body in the river. Swear this to me, and I will lend you my power until that time.”

Gladio felt the chill of the river at his heels, heard the whisper of long memories mimicking the shush of waves on the shore.

“I swear,” he said. 

Gilgamesh nodded, and placed both hands on Gladio’s shoulders. He leaned in, and Gladio felt the impossible coldness of his skin as Gilgamesh pressed dry lips to his forehead. 

“Go, brother,” he said, and the sound of the river rose to a crescendo of yammering tongues, forcing Gladio to close his eyes and stagger back, back, impossibly far, his foot slipping into a sudden emptiness. Rough hands caught him at the shoulders, and he stared into the cold eyes of Cor Leonis, standing out in the open sun beyond the caves.

“Is it done?” he asked. Gladio had to take a moment to gather himself, pressing his hands onto Cor’s arms to make sure he was, in fact, the Marshal, and not Gilgamesh in another form. Cor accepted this without comment, waiting patiently until Gladio felt his pulse sink from a whine to a stuttering hum.

“It’s done,” he said. He opened his mouth to say more, to warn Cor of what was to come, but found he couldn’t find the words. There would never be a way to describe what had happened in those trial chambers, and Cor knew it.

“Good,” Cor said, releasing himself from Gladio’s tight grip. “Then it’s time to find your king.”

 

\---

 

Gladio parked the Regalia behind a copse of trees, taking care to keep the sleek black polish of the car under a spray of dark branches. No one was likely to come upon him at this time of day—After ten years of endless night, people were still adjusting to the harsh glare of the sun, and drivers only passed that way in the dark. As it was, Gladio had nursed a splitting headache most of the way there, sunglasses and all, never mind the way Ignis and Prompto kept blowing up his phone.

That was to be expected, though. Neither of them were prepared to find that Gladio had gone and stolen the last King of Lucis’ body from the morgue, trudged three flights of stairs to the Regalia, and floored it out of the city. It would take too long to explain, and he doubted they’d understand in any case. Noct deserved a funeral. A tomb. He didn’t deserve fifteen hours of frenzied driving, the contents of the last flask of ice magic melting on his stiff limbs, the curious looks of gas station attendants from Insomnia all the way to the edge of nowhere as they eyed the mess of blankets in the back.

He didn’t deserve this, to be borne by his friend and sometime lover through the empty caves of Gilgamesh’s domain. They passed through empty chambers, with no sign of tree, field, or apartment in sight, and by the time Gladio made his way through the tunnel to the river of death, he was beginning to wonder if he’d imagined it all. Perhaps something had changed him, in those ten years of darkness. Perhaps his memory was off, and he had stolen Noct’s body for nothing, and he would turn now and see an empty patch of stone—

“You’ve come.” 

Gilgamesh stood at the far bank of the river where Gladio had left him, hands in the pockets of his wide jacket. 

“I promised I would,” Gladio said gruffly. The river before him was deeper, up to his knees at least. Gilgamesh extended a hand, and Gladio waded in.

The vaporous waters of the river pushed at his legs, trying draw him into its depths. He almost wanted to give in—What purpose did he have, now that Noct was gone? But he had a duty to what was left, to the kingdom that would need to be rebuilt. He stopped in the center of the river and looked down at Noct’s pale, slack face.

“Goodbye, Noct,” he said, in a hoarse voice. He felt cool hands under his, and saw Gilgamesh standing before him, holding Noctis on the other side. Together, they sank to their knees, letting the river wash over the chosen king.

Gladio watched him for a moment, wondering why the river hadn’t torn Noct from his grasp the way it had tried to do with Gilgamesh, so many years ago. Then he saw a flash of color over Noct’s grey skin, a blush of pink blooming outward from his neck like the line of an encroaching fire. The body over his hands grew warm, and strangely lighter, muscles shifting, skin tightening. Noct’s lips parted, and when his lids fluttered as though in sleep, Gladio looked up into the wan face of Gilgamesh.

“Forgive me, brother,” Gilgamesh said, in a voice as faint as the whispers of the dead. The color was draining from his skin even as it flushed in Noct’s, and his limbs shook with the effort of remaining upright. “It has been so long, waiting for my king.”

“But Noct,” Gladio said, tightening his hold on Noctis’ back. Gilgamesh smiled, raised a shoulder.

“A gift,” he said. “For a worthy Shield.” Then he sighed, and fell into the river of death without a sound. As he fell, his body took on the same colorless shape as the spirits of the river, and Gladio lost even the sight of him as he disappeared into the swirling, whispering current.

Beneath him, Noctis stirred.

Gladio dragged the king out of the river, trailing spirits like smoke, and lay him on the cold stone bank. Noct was malleable, his limbs no longer stiff and cold. Gladio placed a hand on the hollow of his neck and felt the pulse of blood there, and let out a laugh that echoed off the walls of the cave.

“The hell, Gladio?” Noct’s voice was thick, more mumble than speech, and his blue eyes squinted up at him just as he had countless times before, when Gladio had dragged his sorry ass out of bed for training in the early mornings. “Nothing funny ‘bout…” He shivered, and slipped on an elbow as he tried to rise. Gladio helped him sit up, and Noct stared out at the river.

“There are people there,” he said, and Gladio looked from the river to Noct, brows knit in concern. “A crowd, all walking towards…” He wet his lips. “Gladio. Where the hell _are_ we?”

“Doesn’t matter,” Gladio said. He touched Noct’s chin, and his lover turned to him, returning his smile with the obnoxious little smirk Gladio knew so well. He kissed him, and his lips were soft, and familiar, and achingly real.

“Come on,” Gladio said. “Let’s go home.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Couldn't resist throwing in a happy ending.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [The Gift](https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904619) by [mushydesserts](https://archiveofourown.org/users/mushydesserts/pseuds/mushydesserts)




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